down the stairs together, and he heard Lapham saying, "Well, then,
you better get a divorce."

He looked red and excited, and the girl's face, which she veiled at
sight of Corey, showed traces of tears. She slipped round him into the
street.

But Lapham stopped, and said, with the show of no feeling but surprise:
"Hello, Corey! Did you want to go up?"

"Yes; there were some letters I hadn't quite got through with."

"You'll find Dennis up there. But I guess you better let them go till
to-morrow. I always make it a rule to stop work when I'm done."

"Perhaps you're right," said Corey, yielding.

"Come along down as far as the boat with me. There's a little matter I
want to talk over with you."

It was a business matter, and related to Corey's proposed connection
with the house.

The next day the head book-keeper, who lunched at the long counter of
the same restaurant with Corey, began to talk with him about Lapham.
Walker had not apparently got his place by seniority; though with his
forehead, bald far up toward the crown, and his round smooth face, one
might have taken him for a plump elder, if he had not looked equally
like a robust infant. The thick drabbish yellow moustache was what
arrested decision in either direction, and the prompt vigour of all his
movements was that of a young man of thirty, which was really Walker's
age. He knew, of course, who Corey was, and he had waited for a man
who might look down on him socially to make the overtures toward
something more than business acquaintance; but, these made, he was
readily responsive, and drew freely on his philosophy of Lapham and his
affairs.

"I think about the only difference between people in this world is that
some know what they want, and some don't. Well, now," said Walker,
beating the bottom of his salt-box to make the salt come out, "the old
man knows what he wants every time. And generally he gets it. Yes,
sir, he generally gets it. He knows what he's about, but I'll be
blessed if the rest of us do half the time. Anyway, we don't till he's
ready to let us. You take my position in most business houses. It's
confidential. The head book-keeper knows right along pretty much
everything the house has got in hand. I'll give you my word I don't.
He may open up to you a little more in your department, but, as far as
the rest of us go, he don't open up any more than an oyster on a hot
brick. They say he had a partner once; I guess he's d